“IBS wrote. “The goal of a hoax is primarily either humor or to defraud someone. Though amusing to some, I would not call my site ‘funny’ and I’m not trying to steal anyone’s money. So, by definition, it’s not a hoax.”

IBS certainly does – or has – stolenl money!

At first, they were running Google adwords (which can cost a small fortune) without the advertisers knowing it. They were taking advantage of the way Google places adwords, based on keyword use. I wonder how many of those advertisers had to respond to people outraged that they were on that site, or asking questions, etc. This is a waste of time and in business, time is money. There is no way to determine how many of these advertisers lost customer faith by being on that site.

It appears later that IBS changed to paid advertising directly through the site while upping the claim that they are satirical (for what purpose?) Yet, this is also fraudulent, considering that advertisers who are foolish enough to buy into the “satire” approach think they will gain legitimate customers by advertising on this site. Ir is slightly less crude than the Gogle adwords approach, but none the less not good for the advertiser. Unfortunately there are marketers out there who claim that ANY traffic is good for a site (this is NOT true) therefore, advertising on a site that gathers a lot of traffic, no matter how they do it, is a good thing. I guess the question here is who is fraudulent.

Nevertheless, the site has not claimed in any place that they are satirical in nature, and it certainly isn’t obvious that it is satire.

This makes it a hoax.

Does the end justify the means? Since when?

The best advice is to stay away from that site and ignore anyone who advertises on it.